Holds going on my wall, and new routing on Harris

Some holds going on the climbing wall at last!

After a month straight of 16 hour days on average, my climbing wall is finished. Well, apart from getting all the holds on. I must admit that after completing the build and various other jobs that needed doing at my place, I was a bit too broken to even climb on it. I just wanted to sleep! But now there are some holds going on it I’m getting more and more excited as it turns from a building project into what I had originally envisioned - a brilliant place to train.

However, rather than jump straight on it, I opted to take advantage of the dry weather and head to the Outer Hebrides for a couple of days new routing and prospecting with Calum Muskett. We did a handful of new lines from E3 to E5 and I worked on this immaculate 40m wall of perfect Gneiss that has been on my projects to look at list for a few years. It was just as good as I hoped, if maybe a little hard.

There were a couple of different ways you could go. The best, and hardest looks upwards of 8b+ climbing with adequate gear. But the crux is super hard. On the first day I was climbing all day in a Citadel jacket and still had numb hands in the wind. In those conditions I could get some purchase on the crux crimps, but couldn’t see how to use them. The next day it was much warmer and I needed a bit of help from the rope to stay on, but did get a sequence that may work. So now I have something great to direct my training, and an excuse to get the ferry back to Harris pretty soon.

A very very hard project to go back to.

4 new titles in the shop.

We’ve just added four great new books and DVDs to the shop. The first three books are all major contributions to the literature on improving at climbing and I’d recommend getting hold of all three. Well done to the authors of all of them who have made a great contribution here and no doubt these books will be the first step to many hard ascents and goals realised in the future.

Gimme Kraft: The Cafe Kraft gym (Kraft = strength btw) in Nurnberg, Germany has gained a great reputation for coaching a string of fantastic climbing talents over the past few years, most notably, Alex Megos who became the first climber to onsight 9a. Their coaches have put together a new book and DVD detailing the principles and exercises they have used to help their talented young climbers become super strong and fit beasts.

So the book is very focused on physical strength and endurance training, both on and off the climbing wall. It provides a great and easy to follow manual for sharpening up weak areas in your strength. This is particularly useful since it can be hard to choose or adapt core strength routines from other sports for climbing.

Both the book and DVD show clearly how to do the basic strength and endurance exercises and the DVD contains many interesting interviews with climbing legends about training and climbing performance. 

Training for the new Alpinism: Steve House and Scott Johnston’s new book on training for alpinism is a much awaited and weighty addition to the available literature on training for climbing. It is the first book to focus solely on alpinism and brings the field right up to date. It is very much training focused (as opposed to skills focused), which is both it’s greatest strength and weakness.

It contains clear and extensive sections on the basic principles of sports physiology, but with the discussion relating directly to climbing in an alpine setting. So you no longer have to learn and then adapt the principles used in other endurance sports to effectively plan your training regime. It also has great and focused sections on strength, mental skills, nutrition, altitude, schedule planning and choosing your training goals. It also contains some fantastic contributions from other world class alpinists, sharing what they have learned about the most effective ways yo improve your alpine climbing.

Its focus on physical rather than technical skills training means there should probably be more than just this book in your training library. However, it joins a collection of titles that are essential reading for climbers who are serious about improving.

The Trad Climber’s Bible: The skills for trad climbing are about as broad as in any sport. This is especially true if you wish to climb in many different settings - hard, technical single pitch climbs, big walls and and alpine faces. The Trad Climber’s Bible comes at the challenge of passing on these skills from a different angle from most instructional manuals.

I jumped at the chance to order it in for the davemacleod.com shop simply because it was authored by the American trad legends John Long and Peter Croft. I was fascinated by how they had approached the challenge of writing about trad skills. They have written the book in a narrative style, with many stories and anecdotes from their combined 70 year experience of pushing their limits on trad all over the world.

Some of the sections, such as those on ‘fiddling’ and ‘embracing the weird’ made me smile as they highlighted the sheer range of unusual skills that are nonetheless essential to be a successful trad climber. It’s a big, thorough, entertaining and inspiring book which will provide much food for thought and arm you with many more skills to throw at your next big lead. Excellent photography throughout and great value for what has clearly been a huge project for the authors.

Wideboyz II: The Wideboyz, Tom Randall and Pete Whittaker, have decided to turn their hand to finger cracks, with the goal of repeating the hardest and most famous of all finger cracks - Cobra Crack (8c) in Squamish. In their own Wideboyz style, they convert their offwidth training den into a finger sqaushing setup and proceed to train, hard. Still, Cobra Crack put up a good fight! Entertaining as ever, and a reminder that focusing and trying damn hard goes a long, long way.

Climbing wall, week 3.

I was hoping to keep posting some daily, or at least frequent climbing wall progress updates. But the chain 16+ hour days working on it kept me rather busy. It has come on a lot over the past week.

All the ply is now on and tidied up with a mission of long hours and going for it with Scott Muir from Dream Climbing Walls. Now the structure is built, it’s up to me to get it all finished. Last night was a bit ridiculous, still washing sanding dust off it at 4am. But today the first coat of paint has been going on and it’s looking great.

I took a couple of days off after Scott left and went to Glasgow. I managed to get my hands on some of Malcolm Smith’s new resin holds which are launching in a couple of weeks under the brand Stonesmith. They are pretty cool and I’ll post up some pics as soon as the paint dries on the wall and I can get them on.

I’ve also been making some of my own holds from hardwood. I’ve never had the tools for working with wood before, but have accumulated some better tools over the past year and I’m really keen to get better at making nice holds. Well made wooden holds are something a bit special. 

Not too long now before I can get rockshoes on and start training on this beast!

Climbing wall, Day 3

By day 2 of building my climbing wall, we’d moved the horizontal trusses up, giving four metres of height. Then it was time to start cutting and drilling the timber frame.

By the end of day three, we’d build most of the frame and I could start to see what the wall space will be like for the first time. It looks soooo good!

Scott from Dream Climbing Walls would be back on Monday, so I had the weekend off. I was feeling a bit fatigued after the building mission. But I was too excited and carried on over the weekend, doing more building and making holds out of hardwood. With any luck, within a week or a bit more, I'll be training on it and getting fit for the rock season.

A nice break came in the form of taking Freida camping since the Lochaber monsoon has finally broken at last. We had a great wee adventure. I woke to the sound of heavy breathing outside the tent in the wee small hours. I peeked outside to see around 15 highland cows surrounding the tent. I’m very much looking forward to taking Frieda on more adventures like this in the hills over the summer.

Climbing wall build, Day 1

Day 1 of building my wall! Moving trusses, sawing, grinding, drilling and generally trying to keep up with Scott Muir from Dream Climbing Walls.

So excited.

Choosing carefully on the Ben

On the steep corner of Rutless, VII,8 Ben Nevis. My camera misted up a bit in the west coast air!

After a huge dump of fresh snow, a lot of folk, including myself, were desperate to get back up the Ben and get some winter routes in. I walked in on a rather wet morning with Helen and Harry to see what we could safely get to. Not much. In the CIC hut, we went round in circles trying to figure out what would be frozen, but not going to avalanche us. In the end, we walked out of the door with no plan, and just went upwards, expecting nothing.

Ice damage

Harry had mentioned a steep wall on the Douglas Boulder. Going beyond this looked dangerous, and it looked a bit more frozen than expected, so we tied in and started going up. After Helen’s tunneling pitch (in snow) and my tunneling pitch (the Gutless chimney), we arrived below the wall. Harry passed me back the lead and I set off, at first trying to go rightwards, before getting pumped trying to get any protection in an ice choked overhanging crack. Eventually, I settled for going left which was a god bit easier, although I was already quite tired from the direct venture.

 Helen moving a lot of snow to make upward progress.

Our late start and chilled out pace meant it was actually getting dark as we were abseiling off the top of the Douglas boulder. With bottomless windslab in the gully below, we continued abseiling down the slopes all the way back to our sacks for safety. We later found out that the route I took had been climbed a few years before by Nick Bullock and Matt Helicker (Rutless VII,8). It’s a good choice for a stormy or dangerous day on the Ben.

Harry and Helen enjoying the belay ledge.

A lot of folk walking out in the morning owing to the tricky conditions for accessing the classic routes.

Andy Nisbet film

Here is a little film that myself and Claire made about Andy Nisbet. Every year the Fort William Mountain Festival make an award for excellence in Mountain Culture. Andy was this year’s recipient and this film talks about his contribution which is huge. I went out filming with Andy and climbing partners, attempting a new route on Beinn Fhada and captured some pretty scary footage of them going for it and falling off! Enjoy!

It's great to see Andy recognised for being an inspiration to so many climbers and a huge direct help to them through his exhaustive and diligent guidebook work over the decades. Thanks Andy.

Two videos from Patagonia

Above is a video of a super problem I did in Patagonia called Wasabi (V12). I made the video while I was out there but the connection was too bad to upload it. I’d seen video of it before I went out and was determined to climb it while I was there. In the end it only took a few sessions.

The next video was put together by Calum Muskett of an attempt on a hard new mixed route on the east face of the Mermoz. Unfortunately we didn't have the right gear to protect a pitch high up and just didn't get another weather window to try again, this time.

Sorting my life out

Walking out from the Mermoz in Patagonia, frustrated by yet more crap weather and conditions. With a bit of time to think about our trip there, the memory of the waiting is fading and the fire to return growing. Photo: Calum Muskett

During February Ive had a lot of sorting out of my life to do since getting home from Patagonia. These sorts of periods are never very good for your health. It’s not good for you to get less than 8 hours of sleep for long periods. So I have to be careful. However, I have got a lot of important stuff done or in progress.

First of all, I have been continuing to tie up my injuries book. I’ve been editing the text and  collating feedback from other I’ve shown it too. I’m most grateful for the feedback which has been excellent. John at Croft Eleven is preparing the illustrations and I have finalised the list of photos I need to take. It’s really taken a huge step forward over the past three months and I’m excited to see the last bits fall into place. I’ve read a huge amount of research over the past months and most eager to share the developments in the different fields of sports medicine that are relevant to climbers. 

A little help from friends. Kev and Michael helping place a lot of T-nuts in my new climbing wall.

Second, I’ve been preparing to build my uber, badass, kick ass, stormer of a climbing wall at my new place in Roy Bridge. I have a large double garage which is shortly to be the best private bouldering centre in Scotland. Hopefully, some of you will be climbing at it too as I might run some technique coaching courses here at some point in the future. Scott at Dream Climbing Walls is designing and building the wall with me. To say I’m excited to see it done is a bit of an understatement. The garage is emptied, prepared and painted and the panels are T-nutted ready for us to start building in a couple of weeks time. 

With various lectures and bits of work during Feb out of the way I was hoping to get out winter climbing, but there is a bit of a blip just now with some warm weather, which was needed anyway to consolidate the snow on the hills. Yesterday I was out on rock in Scotland for the first time this year. I was feeling not bad for a start to the season. I did a bit of bouldering and trad with Calum, showing him around the Polldubh crags.

Finally, I've been starting to plan my trips for the summer. I have at least three big trips to new place in Scotland in mind, and one big one to the alps. Most definitely motivation for training as the rain falls outside.

Calum on the less than well protected Centrepiece, E6 6b, Glen Nevis yesterday.

Calum enjoying Jahu, E6 6a, Glen Nevis

Two nutters walking straight up towards number 5 gully on the Ben on a Cat 4 day with tons of snow being blown around. Surprise surprise, they got avalanched a few minutes later. Some folk are so casual with their own chances of survival.

Trying a new route on Ben Nevis with Donald. The storm got worse and worse and Donald eventually lowered off a pecker hand placed over a flake. We had to crawl in a whiteout back to the CIC hut. Good to be out in weather like that.

Two huge avalanches in the Grey Corries, taken from my living room window last week. Cant imagine how much snow moved in these two monsters.

Clif Bar

I have a new sponsor! During our arrangements to head to Patagonia I spoke to Clif Bar and will be now be eating a lot of Clif Bars in the hills. I’ve always been buying Clif bars by the box load online and had thought about speaking to them directly for some time. So it was a nice surprise that we got in touch with each other through our Patagonia trip. 

Their Energy Bars (oat, raisin and walnut bars are my favourite) have long been a staple for me for mountain days. But I also often eat the Builder’s Bars after training sessions or when I’m trying to be careful about weight. I used to get boxes of them from Amazon if they were hard to find in the retail stores, but they are much easier to find in outdoor retailers now, such as Cotswolds. Finding energy/recovery bars that are actually nice to eat and made of good ingredients can be a lot harder than you’d think it ought to be. For running back in the spring I was using a lot of their Clif-shot blocs as an alternative to gels. I still use gels when the time is right but the blocs are pleasant to eat on training runs and a good way of pacing your CHO intake.

I'm off to munch one now..